


Hey You With the Pretty Face, Welcome to the Human Race

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6759544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BFF fill for the prompt "Nerd!Bellamy and bad girl!Clarke, where she tries to seduce him because she finds him adorable."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey You With the Pretty Face, Welcome to the Human Race

Of course, Bellamy knows about Clarke Griffin. It's a small school, and new students are always a big deal. And Clarke gets extra gossip, because her mother is the new headmistress, who's supposed to be a total hardass. Not that Bellamy really cares about that. It's his senior year, and all he wants to do is keep up his grades and let the one guidance counselor he found who's actually useful help him figure out financial aid and get him into college. He's worked hard for his scholarship, and the last thing he wants to do is rock the boat. So a new headmistress doesn't matter to him, and he figures her daughter won't matter either. 

Especially because Clarke is, apparently, kind of an asshole. Her mom is the headmistress, so it's not like she's going to get expelled, which means she doesn't give a shit about anything. She's in Bellamy's English, Bio, History, and Calc classes, and she sits in the back, not paying attention with the kind of practiced nonchalance of someone who wants everyone to believe they don't care.

Or maybe Bellamy's projecting. He knows something about pretending things don't bother him.

Clarke smokes behind the gym and gets caught eating Niylah Harris out in the janitor's closet. She cuts half the classes they have together, but every time a teacher asks a question, she has the answer, and every test, she aces, from what he's seen. It annoys him, but not enough to let her take up much of his mental real estate.

And then, she plops down across from him in the library and says, "Calculus."

"I'm busy," he says.

"You're good at calc. I suck at calc. I need help."

"So find help."

"You're help."

"Going to class is help," he says, still refusing to look at her. Then she kicks him lightly under the table, and he shoots her a scowl. "What?"

"I go to calc. Haven't missed a single class. Because I suck at calc."

He frowns, thinking it over. She misses English, and she misses History, but come to think of it, she _is_ always in calc and bio. She never raises her hand, and the calc teacher doesn't call on anyone if they don't raise their hand, so she never has to answer questions. But she's there.

"And you're coming to me," he says, slow.

"You've got the second-highest GPA in the senior class," Clarke says.

"And Raven turned you down?"

"Raven's good at math."

"Which is obviously not what you want in a math tutor."

"No, Raven's _good_ at math," she says. "Like--" She regards him, thoughtful, and he tries not to flush. Bellamy doesn't really talk to a lot of people, honestly. He's a scholarship student. He doesn't board, because it's expensive; he takes the bus in every day. He's here for academics, not for friendship, and having Clarke Griffin--who's more popular in two months than he's made himself in two years--watching him is overwhelming. He prefers being invisible to these people. "She can't teach me because she gets this stuff in ways I don't. But you're not good at math. You work really hard at it. So you could teach me."

It's not like she's wrong, but it's disconcerting that she knows that. And, frankly, annoying that she's asking. "Not interested," he says.

"Why not?"

"I have better things to do."

There's another pause, and then she says, "You're bad at bio."

"I'm doing fine in bio."

"And I'm doing fine in calc, but I'm not good at it. You're not good at bio either. We can help each other out."

He huffs. "So, I'm not good at calc and I can tutor you, but I'm not good at bio and I need your help."

"Quid pro quo, Clarice," she says, and he snorts.

"Your best argument for me helping you involves you being a cannibal serial killer?"

"But a smart one."

He is--very slightly--charmed. And he does kind of hate bio. "We can work together on the homework," he says, grudging. "But that's it."

"Deal," she says, and comes to sit next to him. Her uniform skirt is at least an inch above where it's supposed to be, and her blouse has the top two buttons undone, showing off generous amounts of skin. She smells like nicotine and something floral, but it's somehow working for him.

"Don't get comfortable," he grumbles, and she just grins.

*

Bellamy doesn't tend to spend more time at school than he has to. His extracurriculars are a little lacking because he has work, and he tries to be around for his sister. Plus, he doesn't tend to get along with most of his classmates. Even the other scholarship students try to fit in in a way that he doesn't, try to ingratiate themselves with the privileged assholes who make up most of the school. He gets it, he just can't do it himself, and it creates a distance he has no interest in bridging.

He tells Clarke when he'll be in the library and she shows up. At least in private, she's quiet and dedicated, apparently genuinely concerned about her grades and class standing. She's good at biology, but has no trouble explaining it to him, and she seems to really like it too, lighting up and talking with her hands when she thinks something is cool.

Liking her is inadvertent and it bugs him when he realizes he does, because she's still--she can ditch classes and get detention and throw her future away because she's rich and she'll be fine no matter what, and he hates that about her. He hates that she gets that, and he could never have it. He's smart and capable, he doesn't have to study this much. But he can't afford to do any of the sports, both because of equipment and because he has to work, so academics is what he's got. 

He'll have fun in college; he can wait.

And yet, despite it all, he still likes Clarke. She's smart and funny and doesn't seem any more impressed with most of the assholes at the school than he is. Her friends are the people Bellamy tends to actually like, Raven and Monty, and she's openly and rabidly liberal and critical of a lot of bad policies. 

Still, when she says, "What are you doing this weekend?" two months into their arrangement, he bristles.

"I'm busy."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not asking you to come to a party, I want to study. Finals are coming up. Calc on Monday, bio on Wednesday. I want to cram."

"I'm not coming in on a weekend just so I can study. It's a long bus ride."

"I've got a car. I'll come to you."

That actually startles him. "You want to come study with me?"

"Why not? It's not like I have anything going on this weekend. Like I said, I've got a car, so I don't have to bother with the bus. I know you've got work, but we can figure something out, right?"

He swallows hard. "I work four to ten on Saturday and one to nine on Sunday," he tells her. "If you want to work around that, knock yourself out."

"Sure. Where are we meeting?"

There are few things less appealing than Clarke Griffin seeing his apartment, so Bellamy tells her he usually studies at the library, which isn't even a total lie. It's not like he enjoys being at home.

And then, of all things, he's _nervous_ about it. He's never hung out with any of his classmates outside of school, except to work on group projects, and even though he and Clarke are going to be studying, it feels more like friend stuff than school stuff.

Bellamy is an attractive guy, he knows that. But he's pretty sure no one at school realizes. His uniform is old and doesn't fit him well. His glasses are unflattering. He slicks his hair back, which O tells him makes him look like a giant dork. He keeps his head down and doesn't talk to anyone. 

On weekends, well, he still has giant glasses with clunky frames, but he looks pretty good in his own clothes, if you're into nerd chic. Which Clarke probably isn't, and it's not like he _wants_ Clarke to be into him. But he'd like her to be surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Impressed, even.

He's fretting about it enough that he oversleeps, so he ends up just throwing on a plain black t-shirt and a pair of old jeans and running out with an apple and a few granola bars for lunch.

Clarke is already at the library when he arrives, and he gives himself a minute to examine her. She's wearing a white ribbed tank top, which, okay, she always manages to show off a good deal of cleavage at school, but it's still more in the tank top. And he can see tattoos he didn't know she had, a compass on her left arm, a crown over her right breast.

She's gorgeous, which he knew, but it's the pile of books around her, the way she's leaned over her work with her pen leaving a slight indent on her bottom lip, that really makes his stomach lurch.

God, he doesn't have time for a crush on a girl. Especially _this_ girl.

"Hey," he says, sitting down across from her, and she brightens immediately when she looks up. Her eyes sweep up and down over him, and her smile widens.

"You're hot," she says.

He feels his cheeks heat up, which is the worst. "Thanks?"

"Whatever you're doing to your hair, you should stop."

"Maybe I did something to my hair today."

She hums. "That sounds likely. Usually your hair looks kind of like an oil slick, and now it's soft and curly and perfect. One of those definitely sounds like it takes more effort. Are you trying to look like a nerd?"

"It doesn't take that much effort. I am a nerd."

"Don't get me wrong," she goes on, like he didn't say anything. "You're always attractive. But I didn't think you knew you could make it work for you."

"Aren't we studying?"

She smirks. "You have _arms_."

"I had no idea."

"Like, nice arms. Why aren't you on any teams? You're in really good shape."

"Expensive and time consuming. And I have a job on the weekend."

She sobers. "Yeah, sorry. Still."

He pulls out his own books, deliberately not looking at her. "If you can't find used clothes that fit, it's a better idea to go too big than too small. Especially if you buy them when you're fourteen and hoping to get another growth spurt."

Clarke smiles. "Did you?"

"In my mind I'm like six-one," he says, and she nudges her foot against his.

"You're a good height," she says. "I don't like really tall guys." And then, just as easy, "You want to start with calc or bio?"

"Up to you. I'm feeling pretty okay about the bio test."

"Yeah?"

"You're a good teacher," he says. "It's like you actually taught me shit."

She laughs. "Well, you suck then, because I'm really nervous."

"Hey, I never said I was going to be good at this," he says, trying out a grin on her.

She grins back. "Well, my standards are low. So let's do some calc."

They finish up with calc and bio before he has to go to work, and Clarke takes out her English book, apparently happy to settle in. He has a history paper to work on, so he does that, and it's--nice. Companionable. It's not like he doesn't have friends, but there's a sharp divide between the friends he has from work and his old school and the people he knows at his new school, and it's nice to feel like he might actually fit in with someone.

Even if it is Clarke.

On Friday she says, "Are you going to be at the library tomorrow?" and suddenly it's a _thing_ , every Saturday, him and Clarke doing homework. Octavia starts coming along when she doesn't have other plans, and she and Clarke get along in a way that makes Bellamy wary.

"Don't be a shitty influence on my sister," he tells her, once O has left with some makeup tips.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She needs to actually do well in school. She can't be like you."

He regrets the phrasing almost immediately, feels even worse at the way she stiffens. "Like me," Clarke repeats.

"I didn't mean--" He scrubs his face. "If I skipped classes and got detention all the time, they'd kick me out of school. Same for Octavia. Kids like us can't get away with that shit."

"Oh," she says, but she doesn't actually sound offended anymore. Just--thoughtful. "Well," she continues, worrying her lip. "I can give you my tragic backstory, if it makes you feel better."

"It's your life," he says. "Look, if I could get away with the shit you get away with and still go to a good college, I would. But I can't, and neither can my sister. So--I'm trying to convince her it's cool to stay in school. Help me out."

Her mouth twitches. "Are you saying I'm cooler than you are?"

"Everyone knows that." He pauses, but it feels like there's no harm in adding, "People keep asking me what you're doing hanging out with me."

"It's because none of them know you have arms," she says, but he can see a slight flush on her cheeks. "And hair."

"Yeah, I'm generally thought to be armless and bald."

She laughs softly. "Exactly. I'm the only one who knows the truth."

It feels less like a joke than he wants it to, and he can't meet her eyes when he says, "Yeah, you are."

*

Two weeks into February, Clarke loops her arm through his on the way to a pep rally and says, "You can miss this."

Bellamy's walking near, but not with, Murphy and Atom, and they exchange a look like they don't know what Clarke is doing talking to him outside of the library. Which, even though he knows they're friends and she likes him, he still doesn't know sometimes either.

"Miss what?"

"The pep rally. No one's going to notice."

He swallows hard. "What's my alternative?"

She rolls her eyes. "Do you actually care? You can't possibly tell me you were looking forward to going to this thing. It's a pep rally, and you hate sports. You want to come with me."

"Dude, you want to go with her," Murphy adds.

"You know anything you say automatically sounds like a worse idea, right?" Bellamy asks him. He turns his attention back to Clarke. From this angle, he can see the edge of the crown tattoo on her breast, past the fabric of her shirt.

He _hates_ pep rallies.

"Fine," he says. "Lead the way."

Clarke has only been here for half a year, and she already knows way more about sneaking around the school than he does. She tugs him down the art hallway, and then through a door that he assumed would be locked, which apparently leads to a sketchy corridor.

"I really don't want detention," he tells her.

"I know. Trust me."

He does, which is a weird realization. Clarke knows what his reputation means to him, and she won't do anything to jeopardize that. "Okay," he says. "So where are we going?"

"To find somewhere to make out. I've got somewhere in mind."

He trips on his feet, and she smirks. He's expecting her to say _kidding_ or something, but her expression is predatory. "Make out?" he asks.

"I assume you're familiar with the process, but I guess you are pretty antisocial. Don't worry, I can give you tips if you need them."

"Clarke--" he starts, and she pulls him out of the old corridor and into the senior hallway. It's enough to distract him. "This is a good place to make out?"

"We're not there yet," she says, and picks the lock on a door. She glances behind her. "I'm pretty sure no one will find us. But if they do, they'll take us to my mom, and she'll blame me. But we don't have to go up."

"Up?" he asks, and she just gestures to an old ladder in the closet.

"Roof."

He can take one detention. That's probably all he'd get. "Lead the way."

He knew that people went on the roof; he's heard about it. But it was never that appealing to him, not in and of itself. It's flat and kind of high up, but fairly unremarkable. The view is fine, but he still doesn't get why it's this big exciting thing, for some people.

On the other hand, Clarke is up here. 

It's February, and even in California on a sunny day, that's a little chilly, especially on the roof, where the wind is picking up. Clarke sits down and he joins her, and he moves closer, just slightly. It's all the encouragement she needs to curl into his side, an almost overwhelming amount of warmth and softness.

"Is this what you do when you skip class?"

"Most of the time I just go to the library."

"You skip class to go to the library? I thought you were a badass."

She snuggles closer. "My mom got my dad put in jail."

He barks out a surprised laugh. "Uh, not where I was expecting this to go." But then he squeezes her shoulder, rests his chin in her hair. He's kind of crazy about her, honestly. He's not sure how it happened. 

"Well, I want you to like me, so I figure I need to give you my sob story."

"I like you," he says.

"Still."

"So tell me."

"It's kind of a mess. All this--privatizing schools and gutting public education shit. My dad was looking into how some money was spent in our old school district. It was supposed to go to renovations and getting schools up to code, but it didn't." She shrugs. "He told my mom, didn't know she was in on it, they managed to pin the whole thing on him, and she got a new job as a reward. It's fucked up."

"Wow. That really is."

"I know she's never going to expel me, but--I can't do anything else to her right now. Just piss her off as much as possible."

He has to laugh. "Which is why I like you."

"You didn't know."

"I knew you love pissing off assholes. I kind of assumed your mom was an asshole." He swallows, but--she did _say_ she wanted to make out, and she's snuggling with him. Her signals have been unambiguous. So he says, "Thanks for telling me, but seriously, I already knew I liked you," and then tilts her chin up so he can kiss her.

He's not completely inexperienced, but it has been a while, since sometime in the summer. Hooking up tends to be the first thing he gives up in the school year, just because, as much as he likes it, it's the hardest to make time for, between meeting someone and managing expectations. 

But Clarke did most of the work on this one.

There's no hesitation in her response; she slides against him, into his lap, and wraps her arms around him, taking control of the kiss. She's _smiling_ , he can taste it, and that's his favorite part, how happy just kissing him seems to make her.

"I didn't think that was a sexy story," she teases. Seeing her grin is almost better, except they stopped making out.

"Once you said kissing was on the table I stopped paying attention to anything else."

"Good priorities." She leans back in, hands coming up to work the tie around his neck, and he remembers her hooking up with Niylah at the same time he wonders how far she's planning to go, and he tenses in spite of himself. "What?" she asks. Her fingers are still on his tie and her mouth is red, and he can't believe he's worrying about this when he definitely could be getting laid.

"How much making out are we doing?" he asks, careful.

She nudges her nose against his jaw. "As much as you want."

"I want a lot," he admits. "Not--not just now."

"Oh," she says. "Yeah, um--" Her forehead drops onto his shoulder, and she laughs. "I asked you to help me with calc because I had a thing for you."

His breath catches, and he lets his fingers pull up her shirt, slide under the fabric to trace her back. "You didn't even know I had arms yet," he says.

"You were cute, okay? Your glasses are always sliding down your nose and you roll your eyes whenever you hear any gossip, and you're so stressed all the time. I figured blowing you would be a public service. I'm a good Samaritan."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, joke's on me. You're all I've been able to think about for weeks."

"Oh," he breathes, and leans in to kiss her again, long and deep and warm, unhurried. "You can still blow me if you want. I'm definitely stressed all the time. I'm not going to--"

She laughs, gets his tie off and starts unbuttoning his shirt. "I'm pretty stressed too, you know."

"Yeah? I bet I can help." And then, to make sure she knows, "I think about you all the time too. I'm going to take you to dinner. Movies. I don't know. Date shit."

She laughs. "Or we can just study calc and bio and have a lot of sex. But if you want to take me on dates, yeah." She pushes him flat on his back; the roof is cold, but it'll warm up, and Clarke is taking her own shirt off, so he's not complaining. "I'm keeping you," she tells him. "Don't think you're getting out of it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he says, and pulls her back on top of him.

*

In the next week, Bellamy misses gym twice so he can hook up with Clarke, and she nearly talks him into skipping band, because it's an elective, and no one cares.

"Jesus, you're a bad influence. Can't we just have sex after school, like normal people?"

"We're going to do that too," she says, and she laughs, tangles her hand in his hair and pulls him down for a kiss. She convinced him to stop gelling his hair, mostly by telling him that she likes running her fingers through it, and he wants to encourage that as much as possible. "But I've got a reputation to uphold."

"Yeah, I can't believe I forgot about your reputation." He gives her one more kiss, sharp and quick. "Ask me again on Friday," he says, with a theatrical sigh.

"Love you too," she says. "Have fun in your shitty elective. I'm going to be thinking about you. Alone. On the roof."

He groans. "You're actually going to kill me."

"No way. If I kill you, who's going to fuck me after school?" Her smile is soft, and it makes his heart flip. "Go learn. I'll be here later."

"Yeah," he says. "Later."

His band attendance is probably going to take a serious hit on Fridays, which isn't great, but--it _is_ just band. And Clarke is right, he's pretty stressed. He could use something good, and apparently he gets it.

He's whistling when he gets to band, and grinning when he gets to bio after, slides in next to Clarke and squeezes her hand.

Why wait for college to have fun? The last half of senior year is going to be _great_.


End file.
